Biography

Richard Washburn Child was an American author and novelist, born in Worcester, MA, in 1881. After finishing high school he attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School, graduating in 1906, after which he became a corporate lawyer. He got involved in politics and founded the Progressive Republican League, which later became the Progressive Party. During World War I he worked as a war correspondent in Europe and Russia, then went to work for the US Treasury Department in public relations (i.e., propaganda). He developed an affinity for Russia while covering it, and in 1916 he wrote a book, "Potential Russia", which strongly advocated US investment in that country.

After the war he became an editor for "Collier's" Magazine. In 1920 he went to work for President Warren G. Harding's presidential campaign as a writer, and when Harding was elected Child was rewarded with a post as US Ambassador to Italy in 1921, a job he held for three years. He became very close to Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, and in fact helped to persuade Mussolini to make his famous "March on Rome", which helped bring him to power. He was a major factor in the J.P. Morgan Bank investing heavily in Italy after Mussolini came to power in 1922. He returned to the US in 1925 and became editor of "The Saturday Evening Post".

In 1928 he went to work full-time as a paid propaganda writer for Mussolini. He organized Mussolini's notes into an autobiography which he wrote (uncredited, although he was credited for writing the foreword), and had it serialized in "The Saturday Evening Post". He never lost his admiration for Mussolini's fascist philosophy and politics, and wrote many newspaper and magazine articles--especially for the Hearst press--effusively praising Mussolini and his fascist governing style.

He died in 1935.
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A story from Child's anti-hero series, "the Paymaster," was adapted for the stage by playwright Edward Everett Rose as "The Master Thief," and was toured nationally by Francis X. Bushman and his wife, Beverly Bayne, in 1919 and 1920, but the satirical melodrama was never filmed.